Rosemary Lemon Drop

If ever I’ve needed a lip-smacking cocktail, it’s today, the Friday after Labor Day. I should be used to it by now, but each year the “Back to School” moment rudely jerks me out of whatever mellow I’ve managed to achieve during the summer. It plunges me headfirst through a chaotic scramble for supplies and into a pool of anxiety (mine, my son’s, and other parents’) concerning teachers, classmates, lunches, the return of the playground bully, after-school activities, and the grim reality of homework. Nor was my week helped by the shoe store pairing mismatched shoes in the box, or the fact that the art smock I swore was in the closet suddenly vanished the night before school. (Cutting the sleeves off one of your own shirts is not what you want to be doing the exact minute you need to leave the house or risk being late on Day One.)

On the upside, I did talk my son out of wearing a stained sports shirt from the dirty hamper, and he somehow avoided having the one teacher whose name was muttered darkly in our house all summer: the dreaded Ms. X. According to the second-grade gossip mill, she’s both strict and a frequent screamer.

One week down, 36 to go. One hundred eighty days of making turkey and cheese sandwiches at the crack of dawn, of spelling test trauma and my son’s caveman-like answers to the question “How was your day?” Today, though, happy hour starts at 2:55. Maybe I’ll gather some other mothers and serve up this sweet-tart Rosemary Lemon Drop martini recipe with its hint of summer and its sophisticated rosemary riff. It might be just the thing to make us all forget the pain of tuition.–Allison Parker

LC Bottoms Up! Note

You could follow this Lemon Drop Martiini recipe to the letter and shake these cocktails one at a time. Given their rather compelling nature, however, you may instead wish to stir up a batch of them in a pitcher with some ice and set them out for guests to pour at will. (If you’re about to multiply the amounts below but are as bad as we are at math, just bear in mind that 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons.)

Ingredients

Directions

1. Bend 1 sprig of rosemary and drop it into the cocktail shaker. Fill the shaker with ice. Measure in the vodka, limoncello, lemon juice, and simple syrup into the shaker. Cap it and shake vigorously.

2. Rim a martini glass with rosemary sugar, if desired. Strain the cocktail into the martini glass. Float the remaining rosemary sprig (or part of the sprig, if it’s large) in the glass. Imbibe!

Rosemary Sugar

LC Look at All the Ways You’ll Use This Note: This recipe makes ample rosemary sugar, but we’re confident that once you have it on hand, you’ll come up with ample ways to put it to good use. We find a sprinkle of it atop shortbread and grilled or poached stone fruits to be quite nice.

Coarsely chop 2 tablespoons rosemary leaves. Combine the rosemary with 1 cup superfine sugar (or just blitz granulated sugar in a blender until finely ground but not powdery) on a rimmed baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in a warm, dry place until the rosemary has completely dried out, about 4 days. Now blitz the rosemary and sugar in a food processor or spice grinder until finely ground. You can keep the sugar in a tightly sealed container at room temperature for up to 1 month.

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